


The Roman Mistake

by firefly124



Category: Supernatural, Wayward Sisters (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 08:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13267908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefly124/pseuds/firefly124
Summary: Jack and Kaia rescued Dean and Sam from the "bad place," but home isn't safe yet, so he sends them and Cas somewhere else while he deals with Asmodeus.  Why he picked Rome in a universe like the one Balthazar sent them to is more than Dean can figure out, especially since he and Cas are busy answering questions from ... fans.





	The Roman Mistake

**Author's Note:**

> This is set after the S13 mid-season finale and incorporates some ideas from the previews for 13x10. Since the prompt asked for Dean and Cas thrust into a con, I decided to run with the joke that's been going since JIBcon 2016. For any who aren't familiar, that bit can be found [here](https://youtu.be/wKMgcmoYHVE), starting at about minute 15 with some poor soul trying to ask a "serious" question and continued [here](https://youtu.be/6MQHu9XELP0) when Misha brought Jensen up to speed at about minute 4.
> 
> Huge thanks to my beta, ubiquirk. Any remaining errors are entirely my own.

“Wait, how … what …” Dean looked back and forth rapidly between Cas, his mother, Kaia, Jody, and Jack. A few minutes ago, he and Sam had been about to be Godzilla chow, and now they were … where? Some big, dark room that his eyes weren’t adjusting to fast enough.

Mom. Somehow, while he and Sam had been dodging megasaurs, Jack had found Mom and brought her back. Or were they all in the apocalypse world, now? 

She looked … well, she looked alive, and that was about the best that could be said.

“We’re still not safe,” Cas said. “Asmodeus will not be far behind.”

Cas looked a bit worse for wear. Had he gone up against Asmodeus, then?

“Who the fuck is Asmodeus?” Kaia asked. “’Cause I’m about done with this trip from hell.”

“Exactly,” Jack said. “From hell.”

“Why do I even bother to ask?” Kaia muttered as Jody put a careful arm across her shoulders and led her away from them and over to where Mary was resting against a wall, a warning glare sent at each of them but mostly Dean.

He supposed he’d earned that. And then some, really. No way he could ever make it up to that kid. How she’d connected with Jody was another question, but then, Jody was the one that had tipped them to Jack being in South Dakota, so no wonder she’d ended up involved in bailing their asses out.

“So, do we have a plan, if Asmodeus is on our ass?” Sam asked. “Or are we just winging it as usual.”

Jack’s eyes lit up and he grinned.

“Wait,” Cas said, “I do not believe Sam meant that as a literal …”

Dean’s world imploded into a ball of pain the size of a marble then exploded into a tangle of limbs that it took several breaths to sort out. Yeah, some of them were his. Most weren’t.

“… suggestion.” Cas’ voice was oddly muffled and hard to locate.

“Geddoff,” Sam muttered from somewhere around Dean’s left ankle.

Dean rolled off the pile made up of him, Sam, and Cas. At least Cas had the mojo not to end up with broken bones from being at the bottom of that. He was the first to get himself upright and reached out an arm to each of the brothers, pulling them onto their feet.

Wherever they were this time, it wasn’t dark. Well, not exactly. There were just black curtains like … everywhere. There was plenty of light, though, so they could see each other just fine. And they … didn’t look like they’d been tramping around the _Land of the Lost_ (or wherever Cas had been, they hadn’t gotten to that yet). 

“Where the hell are we?” Dean asked.

“Somewhere Jack decided would be safe is my guess,” Cas said.

“What, he can just do that now, even without Kaia?” Because that was just … well, it was potentially awesome if he could manage to avoid them getting thrown to the dinosaurs again at least. As long as he could get them back. “Wait, where’s Kaia? And Jody and Claire? Where’s _Mom_?”

“Maybe he sent them somewhere else?” Sam guessed. He didn’t look any happier about that idea than Dean was.

“What are you …? Did you shave? Are you doing this in costume?” A very flustered looking blonde with an Italian accent was running at them. “Jared, you are due in signing. Jensen, Misha, you are up now.”

“Jared?” Dean asked, then clenched his jaw as the penny dropped.

“Jensen?” Sam asked. Dean could see the lightbulb go on when he looked like he’d bitten into a lemon.

Cas just looked confused as he glanced between each of them, finally asking, “Misha?” 

The blonde shooed them in opposite directions, Sam glaring daggers at them over his shoulder like Dean had absolutely any control over this situation. Meanwhile, Dean’s feet carried him alongside Cas past the black curtains and into blinding light and lots of screaming.

Dean felt as much as heard Cas manifest his angel blade and grabbed his wrist in warning. “I don’t think this is that kind of problem.”

“Then what ‘kind of problem,’ exactly, would you call this?” Cas muttered.

Angus Young saved Dean the need to answer for the moment, meanwhile making him feel pretty much like Tony Stark as “Shoot to Thrill” played over the loudspeaker. As his eyes adjusted to the lights, he let go of Cas’ wrist and looked out over the sea of faces. Yeah, this is what he’d been afraid of. This was a helluva lot bigger, but it still looked pretty much like Becky’s little haunted inn con. And they were all looking at him and Cas to see what they were going to do. He really, really wanted something to punch, but they were going to have to play along with this shit show at least for the moment, till they could figure out their next move.

Oh. Huh. He shrugged, grinned, and then drew his right arm back and slammed it down into the floor, throwing his left hand up behind him, looking out at the audience at the last second.

The crowd went wild.

He straightened up and looked over at Cas, who now appeared to be debating whether Dean was possessed. Dean rolled his eyes, grabbed Cas’ sleeve (with the hand that wasn’t currently throbbing), and dragged him over to the chairs he’d spotted. Each one held a microphone. Behind the chairs, because they were obviously not being humiliated enough, was a giant screen showing … them. On the same stage they were standing on. Sure, that made as much sense as anything else right now.

“Just follow my lead,” Dean mouthed as he picked up one of the mics and tapped it. “Is this thing on?”

“Yes!” the audience replied. At the same time, the music quieted down, making their collective shout way, way too loud.

“Oh, well. Good.” He smiled and nodded. “You should grab yours, too, C-… M-… Cas.”

Hell, they were “in costume.” Might as well stay “in character.” It’d be easier than trying to explain shit to Cas on the fly, starting with why he was being called “Misha.”

It seemed this was a little more organized than Becky’s thing, because people didn’t just jump up to ask questions, they lined up in the two side aisles, each of which had a microphone at the head of the line for them to speak into. Those lines were really, really long.

Son of a bitch.

“H-hi, Jensen, or should I call you Dean?” asked the first person in line.

“Yeah, let’s keep it simple and just call us Dean and Cas-stiel.” He wasn’t sure how Cas would feel about randoms calling him Cas. Hell, Dean wasn’t sure how _he_ felt about it.

“Right, so, um, Dean, this wasn’t my original question, but what made you and Cas decided to come in costume today? I thought this was usually your ‘Roman holiday.’” She made air-quotes and everything.

Yup, he didn’t like it one little bit.

“It was a spur of the moment decision.” Dean snuck a look at Cas. “Just kind of … hit us out of the blue, you know, when we … suddenly found ourselves backstage … in your world.”

Cas’ eyes widened slightly as the pieces began to fit together.

“Right, um, so … you know, this would’ve been easier to ask you as Jensen, but … there’ve been so many scenes lately hinting that Destiel is going to go canon.”

What the actual fuck? An image of schoolgirls dressed up as him and Cas (and hugging) flashed through Dean’s mind and he had to suppress a shudder. That had been creepy as fuck.

“And I know you can’t reveal what’s going to happen next season …”

“Because I have no fucking idea,” Dean muttered.

“… right, but, um, how to ask this now. Well, do you think you and Cas will ever admit your true feelings to each other?”

“Which true feelings are you speaking of?” Cas asked. Because of course he did. “And what is ‘Destiel?’”

“It’s … um, what people call it when they talk about you and Dean as a couple.” The young woman now looked thoroughly terrorized. Dean kind of felt bad for her. He also kind of felt relieved that he wasn’t going to have to carry this alone.

“Oh, I see. Yes, I recall Dean using a similar construction to refer to myself and the demon Meg in the past.” Cas nodded as though this was a completely normal thing to say. 

Shit, that meant he’d heard that. What the hell else had he heard over the years that Dean hadn’t intended?

 _Probably everything_ , his brain supplied helpfully, which did nothing to help him regain the power of speech.

“I believe that it would be unusual for any two beings of any species to be able to speculate accurately as to how their relationship would progress. Life is simply too … random.”

There was a long pause until Dean realized he was the one who had been asked in the first place, so they probably wanted his answer.

“Um, yeah. What he said.”

That brought a round of nervous laughter and the questioner stepped aside to let the next person up. Meanwhile, the person at the head of the other line was starting his question.

“… really not tell you about the musical ep … the musical?”

Cas narrowed his eyes at the young man, then turned to glare at Dean. “No. No, he did not. Pray, enlighten me.”

Dean gulped.

~*~

This torture had to be about over, right? Because if it wasn’t bad enough that the “fans” in their own world were obsessed with their lives up through the apocalypse, apparently this world was pretty much caught up.

That would probably get interesting when it came time for this episode. Dean wished he could find the humor in that. Hell, they might even be further along and just skipped this. A couple of questions had involved Jack and hadn’t made whole lots of sense. Did that qualify as a preview into their own world? He hoped he’d get to find out.

“… rebelling against heaven and everything, how do you explain the amount of influence Dean has over you?”

The entire room giggled. No, like, the entire room. What the fuck?

“Hey,” Dean cut in. He wasn’t sure what they were laughing at, but it seemed like it was Cas, and that wasn’t cool. “Dude makes his own choices. Trust me, even when I’d like to, I don’t have much _influence_ over him at all.”

That just made the giggling worse. Dean looked over to Cas, who appeared to have no more idea what this was about than he did.

“I believe what Dean is attempting to communicate is that it is not a one-way proposition. We both are capable of exerting influence over one another.” Cas nodded as though that should settle matters.

Now it wasn’t just giggling. It was outright hysterical laughter.

“Damn,” someone near one of the mics whispered, “how do they not break? Misha always says he’s bad about that!”

Dean spotted the whisperer at the mic on Cas’ side, a young woman just adjacent to the kid who’d asked the question. He, at least, had the sense to cover the mic with his hand before he replied but not before shooting Dean a guilty look. Well, considering neither of them knew what the ever-loving fuck was going on, Dean could only see one way to get past it.

“Yeah, thanks for that. Next question?”

This time it was a very nervous little kid of about six dressed up like Cas, complete with golden tinsel halo. Not too many people seemed to be in costume at this con, unlike Becky’s, but this was a definite exception. The kid’s mom picked him up to reach the microphone, and the whole time the kid’s eyes never wavered from Cas. It was beyond adorable, not that Dean ever used the word adorable. About anything, really, but especially not anything involving Cas. Though adorable little angel kids (who were probably too young for this show, but never mind) maybe got a pass.

“Casteel,” the kid lisped. “Is that really you?”

Dean saw something shift in Cas.

“Yes,” Cas answered. He walked over to Dean’s side of the stage, right up to the edge, and squatted down to look at the kid. “Though I should warn you that it is very possible I do not have powers in your world. I have not yet had occasion to attempt to use my ‘mojo,’ as Dean would say.”

Smart move. Kids could come out with, well, anything. Better to set the expectations on the low side. Dean moved to Cas’ side thinking to run interference if things went sideways.

“But you’re an angel,” the kid persisted. “You know stuff.”

“I do,” Cas said with a nod, “know stuff.”

“A ‘cause my gramma says my mommies shouldn’t …”

“I’m sorry,” the mother interrupted. “That wasn’t what he was going to ask, I swear.”

“Please,” Cas said in a voice Dean would never think to disobey, “let the child finish his question.”

The mother looked to either side and bit her lip as if thinking hard. She closed her eyes for a second, then finally picked the little angel back up.

“What were you going to ask me?” Cas asked, his voice soft and encouraging.

“My gramma says my mommies shouldn’t love each other,” the little boy said. “She says they’ll go to hell. If … if that happens, can you please save them like you saveded Dean? I don’t want my mommies to go to hell.”

Cas’ eyes flashed like he was about to smite something. Going by the gasps rippling through the room, Dean wasn’t the only one who’d caught that. So, Cas had his grace here, apparently.

“While I only know the rules for my world, I can assure you that where I am from, no one goes to hell for loving someone of the same sex or gender. I cannot imagine a world with any justice at all in which that were true.”

The mini-Cas didn’t look convinced. In fact, he looked teary-eyed.

Like a bolt of divine justice, Cas stood up, grabbed Dean’s lapels, and smashed their lips together. Dean thought he could be forgiven for taking a second to catch on, considering the day he’d had so far. But, hell, if this was Cas’ way of handling the kid’s question, he was sure as hell going to enjoy it. 

A whoop went up from the crowd, but Dean barely heard it through the ringing in his ears and the continual refrain of “holy shit, holy shit, this is happening, holy shit, this is really happening” running through his brain.

He’d just parted his lips and caught a sigh from Cas as the angel’s grip on Dean relaxed. Dean grabbed hold of Cas’ forearms as if he could keep him from pulling back and was surprised when he stayed, just turning his head to face the little boy. He forgot to use the mic, which had fallen to the floor and was in danger of rolling off the edge of the stage, but damn if he ever didn’t need it.

“I cannot promise you what you ask. I must return to my own world. But I hope it is clear to you that I do not agree with your ‘gramma’ about this.”

The kid nodded, his smile watery but still a smile. His mother, who had tears running down her cheeks, also nodded and mouthed, “Thank you.”

“Guys, guys!” Sam’s voice came from somewhere offstage. Dean looked past Cas’ shoulder and saw his brother first waving for them to come over there and then looking around frantically before running over to grab them both.

Another whoop went up through the audience as Sam yanked them along after him, though it was quickly drowned out with what Dean thought might be Metallica. They passed a blur of stagehands and … wait, was that Gabriel? Balthazar? And young Dad? Oh, actors. Right.

Sam dragged them to a stairwell, except when he opened the door, there weren’t stairs so much as a big glowy tear, Jack standing with one foot on either side of it, Kaia just visible beyond. When Sam tried to push them over to Jack, though, Dean balked.

“Wait, what about the dudes who actually live here? We never did find out what happened to them the last time. Well, except for Misha, who apparently survived here.”

Cas whipped his head around and fixed Dean with a glare that would have been scary as hell if he hadn’t just kissed the fucking breath out of him two seconds ago.

“They’ll wake up soon,” Jack said. “They’re fine. Come on, I can’t hold this forever, and Kaia really can’t.”

That got Dean moving, because the last thing he was going to do was hurt that kid any more than he already had. This time, it felt more like being flattened with a rolling pin and then reinflated like a balloon as he stepped through. Sam stumbled after him, and finally, Cas followed by Jack. The tear closed up behind Jack.

Dean braced himself against Sam, who looked about as wobbly as he felt. Kaia, who had been off to his left, stepped right up to him and pointed her finger in his face.

“Do _not_ make me do that again,” she said. “You owe me big, Dean Winchester.”

“Yeah, kid, I do.” He hung his head. Twice. Twice she’d dragged his ass home after he’d gone and fucking kidnapped her at gunpoint. Admittedly, she’d thrown him into the “bad place,” but that hadn’t been on purpose. Probably.

“Yeah, well—”she shuffled like she hadn’t expected agreement“—you can start by just keeping the hell away from me.”

He held up the hand that wasn’t glued to Sam’s shoulder as she glared at them both. Then he finally looked around. Shit, he was really messed up if it was taking him this long to case his surroundings, which were … school gym? At night, at least. He didn’t think it was where they’d been the last time.

“Uh, where the hell are we?” he asked no one in particular.

“Sioux Falls,” Claire answered from behind them.

Dean decided whipping around to look for her was a bad plan right now, and anyway, Cas had his back. Shit. Cas. Dean finally let go of Sam and pushed off him to turn around. Slowly.

Yep, there was Claire, wearing a glare and a sad little frown. Jack had crossed around them and was murmuring something to Kaia. But who really had Dean’s attention was Cas. 

He looked … the same. Shouldn’t something look different after, well, after? His trench coat didn’t even look more rumpled than it had before.

“Jody’s at the hospital with your mom.”

That riveted Dean’s attention back on Claire.

“Mom’s in the hospital?” Sam gasped. “No, wait, of course she is. Good. Shit, this world-jumping has scrambled my brain.”

“You and me both,” Dean agreed. “Any word?”

Claire pulled out her phone, swiped the screen, and read, “Miraculous lack of serious internal injuries. Broken ribs and arm. Still working on the wounds. Alex is learning to change the dressings, ‘cause, y’know, nursing school.”

That was … actually better than he’d have expected from what Jack had shown him. Dean knew exactly what kind of damage a cage like that could do, but Michael must’ve been keeping the wounds shallow to keep her around longer. He swallowed the bile that climbed into the back of his throat.

“Thanks, Claire,” Sam said. “Um, and Asmodeus?”

“Oh, he’s no problem,” Jack said with a smile. “While you were gone, I trapped him far, far away.”

“Far away innnn our dimension?” Sam asked.

What even were their lives that that was a reasonable question?

“Sadly, yes, but it should take him awhile to get out of there.” Jack paused and tilted his head thoughtfully. “Lucifer too.”

“Lucifer,” Sam said.

Dean just gaped and tried to nod, though it felt more like he was drawing circles with his face so he snapped his jaw shut and stopped moving. 

“We should have plenty of time to figure out what to do with them before they are a problem,” Jack added.

“We should get to Mom,” Sam said, then looked around at the others. “Any way we could catch a ride there?”

“I brought the Impala,” Jack said proudly. 

Dean forced a smile. Whatever the kid had done to her, he could fix. Probably.

“Jack,” Cas finally spoke, “why don’t you escort Claire and Kaia to their car and let Sam check over the Impala.”

Jack tilted his head to one side, then shrugged, grinned, and said, “Sure” before doing exactly that.

Dean kept one eye on Cas and one eye on the rest of them until the gym door shut behind them.

“Dean …”

“Cas …”

They both just stood there for a minute trying to figure out who should go first.

“Dean, I should apologize. It was wrong to …”

He wasn’t actually … he was. He was apologizing for the most awesome thirty seconds of Dean’s entire life. That just wasn’t gonna fly, so Dean took two steps towards him.

“I understand if you feel the need to …”

Dean shut him up. Fortunately, it didn’t take Cas long to catch on, as he quickly took back control, grabbing Dean’s shoulders roughly and walking him backwards to the nearest wall and pinning him against it, never removing his lips from Dean’s. Dean relaxed into the combined grip of Cas and the wall as Cas finally, finally pressed his tongue into Dean’s mouth and his knee between Dean’s legs. One hand moved to Dean’s hair, fingers tangling and pulling until Dean moaned shamelessly into Cas’ mouth.

The gym door slammed open again, and Dean hoped Cas was gonna smite whoever the fuck that was, because this was _not_ the time.

“Guys. Mom? Hospital? What the hell?” Sam sputtered. “You know what, never mind. I’ll just go … find some bleach for my brain.”

Cas pulled back and rested his forehead against Dean’s. “We should go.”

“Yeah.”

Cas didn’t let him go.

“We will continue this conversation later.” It wasn’t a question. Not even a suggestion.

“Abso-fucking-lutely.” Hell, they might even use words for some of it, for all Dean cared. 

“Good.” Cas took a step back.

It took Dean a second to find his balance. Once he did, though, he pushed off the wall and led the way to the gym door. Before pulling it open, though, he turned to look at Cas again.

“You did good back there, Cas. That little kid didn’t deserve to think his moms were going anywhere but heaven. I mean, hopefully not for a long time. But, yeah.”

Cas sighed. “I do not know how that universe works, so I was careful not to lie.”

“I know.” Dean chuckled. “Those guys, Jensen and Misha, are going to have a lot of ‘splaining to do.”

“I believe that Misha could plead that this Jensen is a bad influence.” Cas’ eyes twinkled.

“I dunno. Kinda looked like it was Misha who was being the _influencer_ there.” Dean grinned.

The door got opened from under Dean’s hand.

“Guys, seriously! C’mon!” Sam held the door open and glared at them as they walked through. 

“What was the name of the third actor?” Cas asked. “Jared? Perhaps he is the bad _influence_.”

Dean was laughing so hard by the time Sam grabbed him and dragged him out to the car that he didn’t even care when he got thrown in the passenger seat.


End file.
